The US military hopes that drones will be capable of changing their own missions, altering course without a human command, and buzzing through the skies in coordinated groups within the next 25 years, according to a new Defense Department report.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) explained its hopes for the
upcoming decades in its Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap,
released to the public last week. At nearly 150 pages, the report
outlines a variety of goals for air, land, and sea vehicles – yet
the unmanned aerial systems (as drones are called) are featured
prominently throughout.

For all the science fiction fears drones have roused amongst the
public, the technology that the military relies so heavily on is
still in its relative infancy. The unmanned vehicles rely on GPS
systems to determine their course and in some cases bombing
routes, which explains in part why thousands of civilians across
the Middle East have been killed without cause.

Critics of current US drone operations in the Middle East as well
as their proliferation over the country’s airspace are unlikely
to find any comfort in the DoD’s Roadmap. Officials hope to
install a variety of algorithms, detection sensors, and advanced
machine learning into drones that will implant in the machines a
set of internal laws that give them more control over their own
behavior.

“System vulnerabilities and threats are examined, as well as
risk of exposure and consequence of system compromise, to
proactively establish the foundation of security disciplines as
early as reasonable in the developmental life cycle,” the
Roadmap notes. “Impact to the program in terms of cost,
schedules, and performance is also factored into the
determination of appropriate protective measures.”

Unmanned aerial systems currently constitute a major drain on the
military's budget. Officials hope to ease this burden without
sacrificing any firepower by shifting many of the human
responsibilities to the drone itself. Taken literally, this
process involves ending the execution of step-by-step commands
and employing commands that the report notes may “require
deviation from pre-programmed tasks.”

Along with surpassing budgetary constraints, the authors of the
Roadmap anticipate that, should US drone dominance ever be met
with an adversary, American strategies will be “more
effective through greater automation and greater
performance.”

To make this goal a reality the Roadmap predicts the development
of “swarms” of drones that are shot from a larger
unmanned vehicle that carries them within range of a target. The
so-called “mothership” would be guided by an on-board
camera with a human pilot guiding from a military base. When that
pilot identifies a target within a range of 250 nautical miles,
he would fire the drone swarm with the aim that they will explode
on target.

Yet the DoD seems to recognize that these goals will not be
achieved without some measure of resistance.

“Regulatory and cultural hurdles must be carefully considered
early in system development,” the report notes. “In this
paradigm, technology development and tests will help shape the
appropriate requirement, standards, and regulations.”